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A Summer Sunday
Every morning after I wake up I realize that I get to have coffee. And on weekends I realize I get to have it while sitting on the couch, relaxing. It’s such a small delight but it is one that makes me very happy. For the moment the house is quiet as Forest and Chris are on the porch working on a leaky faucet. There’s a rosy wolf snail crawling on the siding on the porch and someone is chainsawing across the pond. Last night’s thunderstorms are gone and we’ve got a warm and sunny morning gracing our day. Today I’m hoping for no rain so that I can do…
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Skipper + Agastache
Did you know there are a ton of skipper butterflies? I sat down yesterday to try to identify this one flitting about on this anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) the other afternoon and and I came up empty handed on an identification. There are a couple that look similar, and man, I lost patience pretty quickly with it, wishing I was flipping through a book instead of the internet. We have a butterfly book for Florida, Butterflies Through Binoculars, and it is helpful sometimes but the different region definitely makes it difficult to figure out solely from that book sometimes. I really love the anise hyssop for the sole fact it…
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Sunday Reads
Ahhh, good morning! I’m sitting here watching, over the screen of my laptop, a cartoon called DinoTrux on Netflix—a toddler’s idea of the perfect cartoon—dinosaurs turned into trucks, what’s not to like? Although, we *have* watched Toy Story 3 a gazillion times over the last week, so maybe that’s the perfect cartoon? Anyway, I’ve got a great mug of coffee and am finally able to lounge and relax away my mornings over the weekend. Here are a few interesting tidbits I’ve read this week. Let’s start off with a couple of tweets! THIS ???????? IS ???????? NOT ???????? A ???????? FUCKING ???????? MONARCHY ???????? https://t.co/Vg85LGcaLd — Sarah Lerner (@SarahLerner) July…
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July
If I’m out and about in the car, which we have been quite a bit over the last several weeks, I notice changes, the changes signaling the upcoming seasonal shift. It is still two months away, but it is coming. It is noticeable on social media feeds and garden blogs, too, with people thinking about fall crops. We may be smack-dab in the middle of summer but for me it already feels like we’re on the top of the peak and about to start the downward slide. Sure, there’s plenty of heat left in store for us but it took living in Florida for me to really pay attention to…
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Lake Explorations at Brazos Bend State Park
As I mentioned in last week’s post about Brazos Bend State Park, there are plenty of alligators at this park to oogle at. Elm Lake and 40-acre Lake would be the primary places to see alligators but the smaller lakes host alligators, too. Alligator gar Chris spotted this quickly on one of the little docks on Elm Lake. Thalia dealbata Of course there was some fishing time put in on 40-acre Lake! Yellow-crowned night heron Yellow bladderwort Yellow and purple bladderwort Dragonflies were very active in the wetlands. I really need to get a dragonfly identification book. I am awful at telling the difference between anhingas and cormorants, especially from…
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On the Trails at Brazos Bend State Park
Now that we’ve entered the non-camping zone of summer, I am now looking back at our second to last camping trip of the season. In early May we went to Brazos Bend State Park; it was warming up but it wasn’t unbearable quite yet. Thanks to the shady campsite we had, we were able to stay a little cool in the middle of the day by lounging in the tent. Our last camping trip, to the LCRA Matagorda Nature Park was the opposite of that—hot, sticky, no shade. At Brazos Bend there really is a plethora of things to do and it is probably one of the more popular parks…
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In the Edible Garden | Early-Mid June 2017
Tomatoes have started slowing down in production, which frankly—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—I’m glad about. The hustle of getting food processed over a few short weeks when everything is in abundance can be tiring. Especially tomatoes. That said, we are still rolling in blackberries and green beans are still giving us a good amount to stash and freeze once a week. We should have more beans over the coming month or two as I recently planted Dragon Tongue, Painted Lady, and Royal Burgundy. In addition, I should have Big Red Ripper cowpeas coming eventually, too. A crazy canning and food preservation day a few weeks back. Earlier in…
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Enjoying June’s Blooms
The patches of tropical milkweed have been blooming profusely the last few months and have now made it all the way into seed setting stage, with their fluff floating seeds about the garden, ready to start more milkweed wherever it pleases. Last year I moved a couple of plants that had sprouted next to our driveway about 30 feet away from the garden. I went ahead and sowed some seeds on the potting bench in an effort to get more milkweed germinated ahead of the August/September return monarch migration in hopes of having some plants in containers by then. I have three I also dug up from the compost that…
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Tomato Portraits (and a couple of Squash!)
A few tomato portraits from this season. It’s been a few years since I’ve taken fruit and vegetable portraits—err, looks like I filed a kombucha post in the wrong category as you will see if you click through that—and I got around to doing a few one day before canning a few weekends ago. Hopefully I can get out and do some more this summer! Togo Trifle/Togo Trefle: These tomatoes have been fairly prolific this season but they have also been targeted heavily by the leaf footed bugs and as such I’ve had a ton of them rotting on the vine because of those pesky insects. Rutgers: This tomato isn’t…
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Friday Five | 9
It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these, last August, in fact! This will be one part good things, one part things I’m reading/link-ups, and maybe one small rant. Blackberry Jam! Last summer I made my first ever batch of blackberry jam. It was a half batch and the jars lasted all year after I had canned them. This was awesome! About a month ago I was going to open the last jar to use up before the blackberries came in but I was dismayed to see that the jar had come unsealed! So sad! I opened it and it smelled fine but I wasn’t about to test it…